Large-area electrical imaging having single neuron resolution using 236,880 electrodes CMOS-MEA technology

Abstract

The electrophysiological technology having a high spatio-temporal resolution at the single-cell level, and noninvasive measurements of large areas provides insights on underlying neuronal function. Here, we used a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-microelectrode array (MEA) that uses 236,880 electrodes each with an electrode size of 11.22 × 11.22 µm and 236,880 covering a wide area of 5.5 × 5.7 mm in presenting a detailed and single-cell-level neural activity analysis platform for brain slices, human iPS cell-derived cortical networks, peripheral neurons, and human brain organoids. Propagation pattern characteristics between brain regions changes the synaptic strength into compounds based on single-cell time-series patterns, classification based on single DRG neuron firing patterns and compound responses, axonal conduction characteristics and changes to anticancer drugs, and network activities and transition to compounds in brain organoids were extracted. This detailed analysis of neural activity at the single-cell level using our CMOS-MEA provides a new understanding the basic mechanisms of brain circuits in vitro and ex vivo, on human neurological diseases for drug discovery, and compound toxicity assessment.